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Completed TRL 6 (started at 3, targeting 6)
Demonstrate a linear-variable spectrometer with an H2RG array. Linear Variable Filter (LVF) spectrometers provide attractive resource benefits - high optical throughput with minimal mass & volume and no moving parts. However LVF spectrometers have not been shown to meet the specific needs of astronomy which are much different from planetary mapping applications. Therefore we propose to demonstrate its use for astronomy at system level including: Spectral passband uniformity and blocking; Control of ghost reflections; Control of spectral curvature (aka 'smile'); Stable response needed to stitch spectra together. Program leverages existing hardware from CIBER2 project:Hawaii-2RG array; Cryogenic f/3 telescope; Readout electronics; Optical collimator; Spectrometer; Large integrating sphere.
Potential follow-on application include: CIBER2 will using 3 LVFs to study the absolute extragalactic background light spectrum on a NASA sounding rocket, and demonstrate for space. SPHEREx is a NASA SMEx mission recently selected for step 2. SPHEREx will use 4 large-area LVFs to produce spectra at 6 arcseconds resolution over entire sky. LVF spectrometers ideal for numerous space astronomy applications due to simplicity and minimal resource requirements.
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